Like many fans i enjoyed Spider-Man 3 at the time of first seeing it, but then after a few weeks you look back and see all the things that could’ve made it better. So here is my thoughts on what went wrong the what the future sequels should have to make them fresh and exciting.

I think that in Spider-man 4 there should be very limited time of mary jane in the story. In spider-man 1 we saw peter pining after MJ and befriending her, in spider-man 2 they grew apart while falling in love, and in spider-man 3 they went from being happy to miserable.

For the films; the MJ and peter parker story has run it’s course, we don’t need to see anymore as we’ve had three films worth so far. The format has become stale, it’s like those great TV shows that start off with a great first season of characters dating on and off but then in the second and third seasons new characters are introduced, dated and then gone and forgotten by the end of the season while the orginal characters get back to their on-again-off-again relationships that by now have lost their appeal.

I understand that Peter isn’t the most happiest of superheroes, but he need to lighten up a little so the fans don’t feel so depressed and sorry for him.

So here is how i see Spider-man 4 being a fresh spidey story and major hit. The theme will be ‘THE HUNT’ (see below)
Mary jane and peter have broken up, it’s been a few months, they’ve eached moved on although they are still there for each other when needed, Peter is dating Betty Brant and is doing relatively well at the paper and at college. He and Dr connors have grown closer and frequently do experiments together as friends.
Now the meat of the story unfolds. Loose on the streets of New York is a maniacal serial killer who craves nothing but death and blood, he is of course Cletus Kassidy (Human Kassidy) he has claimed several victims thus far in a string of killing and attacks. One night he finds Mary Jane,  she becomes critically wounded (comatose, scarred, virtually dead) Peter parker finds out and all his feelings of anger come back, doubled this time by the fat that he wasn’t there to save like he did in every single film so far (this is important as she has gotten taken in every movie and recovered without a scratch) Peter finds out that it was Kassidy but knows that he, Peter, is no killer, so he decides that he needs  one thing to help in his quest for justice, he goes to Dr Connors lab and steals the mutated/offspringed symbiote of Venom that is Carnage, he bonds with Carnage and searches for Kassidy.

For the Majority of the film we see much more of Spider-man than peter parker as the movie is called Spider-man 4, not peter parker 4. This starts the theme of the hunt as spider-carnage hunts for Kassidy, as he does this he is attacked by another hunter, Kraven who comes to new york to kill the greatest game of all Spider-Man, So Kraven hunts Spidey, Spidey hunts Kassidy.

Spidey finds Kassidy and since he’s only human, spidey doesn’t get his ass handed to him or his costume ripped to shreds, he injures, and by that i mean when he hits Kassidy there is actual evidence of trauma unlike spidey drop kincking the powerless Doc Ock and not leaving so much as a red mark. During the attack the Carnage Symbiote senses the evil in Kassidy and betrays spidey by bonding with Kassidy making the evil Carnage character.

This is a great chance to do a symbiote story PROPERLY, i know Sam Raimi had no love for Venom, but i find Venom to be one of the most interesting and vile characters because he didn’t rob banks or want to do science projects or rule the world, he was a direct enemy of Spider-man who’s only goal was to kill spider-man, in the third film this whole lengthy pschycological pursuit of spider-man and beating him at evey corner was totally left out or squeezedd into five minutes at the end, What’s worse is that Venom teams up with sandman before he even take a shot at Spidey himself, The CGI work was amazing but simply not used enough, we only see his Venom face once for about thrity seconds the rest of the time he is whizzing by so fast you can’t even focus on him.

What i think failed in spidey 3 wasn’t that they included too much but they didn’t have enough balance to tell the full story, there was about 3/4 of the film with Peter and Mary jane moaning at each other or on the phone, 5 mins of Venom and about twenty minutes of sandman, this took away all the characterisation of the villains that make you value their place in the story.

The forth should be like Empires’, equal amounts of the segments of the story, the villian(s) (Darth Vader on the Star Destroyer), the hero (Luke on Dagobah) and other characters to show the impact of the story (Han and Leia)

I’m not sure how the rest of the story should go but i think the ending shouldn’t have a complete resolution like 2 and 3. In spider-man, Peter is left with more happening as he and harry talk bout his fathers death. In the second, MJ comes to peter and they are loved up and the end equalling a happy ending, in the third although Harry dies he becomes a good guy and so has a heroic end, a little sad, but venom is defeated and sandman leaves, so things look pretty resolved

In the end of the forth i think the carnage symbiote having been turned further evil by Cassidy should re-bond with Spider-man and we should see peter’s face underneath screaming a silent scream with tears running down his face as the symboite tortures his mind… fade to black with a to be continued line.

Important things that should and shouldn’t happen in the story:

1. Spider-man is not unmasked, so far Green Goblin knew who he was as did Harry, Mary Jane, Doc Ock, Sandman, Venom and a  whole bunch of people on the train, i mean it’s a wonder the whole of New York doesn’t know.
2. Flat un-interesting continuation of the Peter/MJ story thats been done to death.
3. More time for the villains to shine.
4. More Spidey than parker, we’ve got three films full of parker.